Tart Tatin - not mom's

My dear friend, Mary, & I attended a cooking school a few years back and had a great time learning lots of new recipes! Jim complained that I always go to these cooking classes but never make the recipes again, so he never gets to see (or taste) the fruits of my small cooking education. So, I decided that I needed to pick a few favorites and share them with Jim, plus I had some apples and rosemary that I needed to use.

According to whatscookingamerica.net, the origin of tart tatin begins with the l'Hotel Tatin (in the a town called Lamotte-Beuvron in the Loire Valley of France - see map) by two unmarried sisters who owned and ran the hotel. They cooked for the guest as well. Their specialty was an apple tart. It sounds as if the tart tatin, an upside-down apple tart was actually an accident made by one of the sisters in a hurried tourist season.


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This rosemary brown sugar version of the tart was a hit with Mary and me, not so much with the husband. He said that there was too much rosemary in it, but it didn't stop him from eating it with vanilla ice cream!

Recipe:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp minced fresh rosemary
1/4 tsp salt
10 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 egg yolks
3 Tbsp cold water

Place flour, sugar, rosemary and salt in food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process to combine. Add butter & pulse until coarse meal consistency (work quickly to keep butter cold). Whisk egg yolks & water in a small bowl to thoroughly combine. Add all at once to food processor & pulse several times to bring dough together.

Remove dough from processor; place on a large piece of plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 min.

Filling:
4 Granny Smith apples
1 tsp fresh minced rosemary (you may want to use a little bit less, depending on your taste)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp water
3 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
finely minced zest of one orange

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Peel apples, cut in half & remove core and stem. Slice each in half and cut into think slices.

Place apple slices in a mixing bowl and toss with rosemary and zest. Combine sugar & water in a heavy saute pan (with an oven-safe handle). Place pan over med-high heat. Do not stir sugar. Cook until sugar is a golden brown. Remove from heat & add butter. Whisk to incorporate butter.

Overlap the apple slices in a circular pattern in the pan. Fill the entire bottom portion of the pan.

Flour dough lightly and place it between 2 sheets of waxed paper. Roll dough out into a circle a little bigger than your pan. Place dough in pan and trim edges, but make sure that it covers the apples completely.

Place pan in the oven and bake for 20-25 min. Remove from the oven when golden brown and let it rest for a couple minutes. Invert onto a serving platter (watch out! - this can be a messy & scorching hot process). Serve with ice cream.